I’m crazy detailed about how to get it done…and brilliant at checking things off…but those are things that exist in the big picture. I never really get at the nooks and crannies of the English Muffin…I don’t wait for the butter to melt…it’s only important that the whole thing is covered in before before taking a bite.

Understand?

I move.

A lot.

And every time I plan it and make lists about what order to do what thing…and then I hurry up and wait until two days before and freak out. I don’t mean to, but that happens. Every time.

Then I throw everything into boxes and decide to decide on whether to keep it as I unpack…if it doesn’t have a place it will go–i tell myself–every time.

But it always has a place.

Always.

There is always a closet, a shelf, a shed.

I do this because it’s in my genes. I am my grandmothers grand daughter. Cupboards are stocked to the brim just in case war breaks out, or money fails, or there is any kind of shortage. I mean any kind.

I keep home like my mother. A home that is safe and welcoming. A home that can help whoever needs to stop over without even missing a beat. A home that can hold you as long as you need to be held.

I sold everything I own except what fits inside 4-32″ duffle bags. Truth be told there were a few rocks that were sent ahead…because…I can sell my bed….but I can’t let go of my sweet rock friends.

I have slimmed down so much my skin hurts. That my soul aches from the loss of the things that held so much history, so much memory. Things I have loved and moved and packed and unpacked and touched and remembered their stories, move after move after move. Things I had plans for, for this mystery moment when that particular bowl would be just the bowl to use. Oh, the stories I’ve created.

I actually feel unrecognizable to myself. I feel like i just dropped so many layers of memory and story and expectation hat when i look in the mirror and see my reflection it will be too bright for my eyes.

And so with car packed, and dog on my lap because there is no where else for him to sit…we drove out literally into the sunset. Left a place that didn’t feel like home anymore on our way to a place that I have no idea how I’ll feel. That all I have is trust. That all I have are signs. That all I have is openness.

I didn’t allow myself to cry for these things. These memories that evaporated like mist with each new hand that pawed over them. These little pieces of me that hold energy and now belong to someone else. And they are just things. I keep telling myself this. And now I get that energy back, right? Now I am more complete somehow? Now I am me, again.

Many of these things were from a time I was married, had a family, a big house. Of a time with a bursting practice with two treatment rooms and a receptionist. From times of lovers past. From times of turbulence and sickness. From times of severe creativity and joy. From times of confusion. From times of friendship. So many moments. So many memories.

I didn’t allow myself to make lists. I didn’t listen to my grandmother on one shoulder, and my mother on the other. I have to distinguish myself from me. And i’m not sure I know right now who that woman is. Not just yet. Maybe she is bigger then I can even know right now, safe in my mothers house.

I’m told this rawness is normal after a huge purge.

This feeling of floating.

Of homelessness. Of placeless-ness.

I think once the shock wears off and I experience the lightness of freedom as that….